Officer who falsely closed missing-person case did it again, family says

The family of a man in his 60s who went missing on Jeju Island and was found dead 51 days later had visited the police station multiple times seeking help after filing the initial report, it has emerged. "What was the police doing while our father was turning to bones?" the family said.

The controversy has deepened after it emerged that the officer who took the initial missing-person report falsely closed the case without confirming the man's safety.

Criticism of police has intensified amid a separate case in Gwangju, where the father of Jang Yun-gi, a man convicted of murdering a high school girl, allegedly used his position as a police officer to destroy evidence and pressure investigators. Concerns about internal oversight and investigative capacity are also growing as police are set to gain expanded authority in October, when prosecutors lose their supplementary investigation rights.

According to police and other sources, the family of the man — who went missing on July 2 and was found dead 51 days later — visited the Jeju Western Police Station on Sunday to protest the inadequate initial response and the officer's false closure of the case.

"Right after we filed the missing-person report on July 2, the officer in charge told us our father was safe," the family said. "But we were not reassured, and we went back twice more to ask for help."

They said the officer told them their father had asked not to reveal his whereabouts, and that they had waited for him, trusting that explanation.

"Even after that, our father remained unreachable, so we went back to the police again — but they only said he wasn't answering his phone and told us to look into it ourselves," the family said. "We trusted the police, but we did not get enough help."

They added through tears that news reports about another falsely closed missing-person case resembled their father's situation, prompting them to file a new missing-person report on Friday. A body believed to be their father's was found the very next day.

The family had filed the first missing-person report on July 2. A subsequent police investigation found that Officer A, who took that report, had falsely closed the case without ever contacting the man or confirming his safety.

"What was the police doing while a person was reduced to bones, until he was unrecognizable?" the family said, voicing their outrage.

They also said: "We are not asking for a simple apology. We want to know what judgment and measures were appropriate at the time of the initial report, and whether an active search was conducted. If there was a failure in the response, those responsible must be held accountable."

Officer A had previously taken a missing-person report on May 15 from the boyfriend of Jang Mi-ran, 37, who had gone missing on Jeju Island, and closed the case roughly two and a half hours later, telling the reporting party that the missing woman was safe, according to the investigation.

A review of phone records found no evidence that Officer A had actually spoken with Jang. It also emerged that Jang's information had been deleted from the police missing-persons profiling system.

Police have arrested Officer A and are investigating the circumstances under which both cases — involving the man in his 60s and Jang — were falsely closed, as well as whether there were additional instances of negligent handling.